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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 5 Mar 2002 09:15:26 -0500
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Ruttner writes:
>The variation between the populations of A. mellifera with the smallest and the largest bees were found to range between 25-31% of the smaller value ... Size of brood cells can be taken as species and subspecies characteristic and is even used as a simple discriminant for greatly differing races (e.g., between strains of European and African origin).  Several races of A. mellifera can be completely separated by a few characters of size alone.


It seems as if, had there been an artificial enlarging of bees by human interaction, he would have mentioned it here. He states that European bees are up to 31% larger than some African races, but regards this as a natural -- not artificial -- difference. Furthermore, if there were such a phenomenon as abnormally enlarged populations within a paritcular race, this would render the above statements invalid. Do people really believe that such a thing as a *significant human modification* of honey bees by man would have escaped the notice of Dr. Ruttner and all other researchers engaged in the study of honey bee races? How could this possibly be?

pb

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